WHO are you, as those giants of existentialism The Who once asked. It’s a simple but pertinent question, and one that is increasingly being followed by another: can you prove it?

Identity is a hot topic and it has the photo card to confirm it. Everyone wants to know who you are, what your mother’s maiden name is and whether you know your PIN code.

But, as Computing (July 28) reports, the growing value attached to “identity” brings a disturbing corollary: identity theft. “Sadly, fraud as a whole is a growth industry here in the UK,” an expert says.

And up steps Building (July 29) to prove the point. It says that police are probing an international trade in counterfeit “CSCS” cards, used by construction workers to prove their competence, after a package containing hundreds of forgeries was intercepted by a British courier company en route from India. But an editorial turns this development on its head, saying that it proves that the cards now hold “real value” as a means of keeping out the cowboys. Huh?

Schools are not exempt from this national ID obsession. The Times Educational Supplement (July 29) says that pupils sitting exams may soon have to wear photo cards so that invigilators can be sure that they are who they say they are. One school in Lincolnshire is already using cards to “boost the efficiency of running exams”, although it describes its cards as “homemade”, which in terms of clamping down on exam cheats sounds a bit worrying.

But identity cards, even if they are called “opportunity” cards, can bring benefits. That, at least, is what the Home Office minister, Beverley Hughes, tells Young People Now (July 27). She says that young people who do not sign up for one of the new cards, proposed in a Green Paper last month, could be at a disadvantage. Cardholders will be able to earn “credit” by being kind to cats and old people and engaging in other “positive activities”. But Hughes says that those who snub the card will be unable to access discounts on goods and services.

Finally, The Job (July 22) carries a salutary warning that proving your identity does not always keep you on the right side of the law. A “notorious” teenage graffiti artist was nicked by an off-duty community support officer who spotted him daubing his “tag” — graffiti’s equivalent of a signature — on a bus-stop. Presumably he has blown his chances of an opportunity card.

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